when I was a kid I always ordered malted shakes until my cousin opened a place and I tasted the malt by itself. I haven't ordered one since. now as far as flavors, if they have it I order blueberry. Other than that it's usually vanilla or occassionally pineapple.

I like both shakes and malts, but am partial to strawberry, or some of the fancier ones with candies or cookies or syrups in them. I pulled in to a local Sonic recently and discovered that malts were no longer available. I liked their chocolate cream pie shake with a bit of malt powder added. A pineapple shake with a touch of butterscotch topping mixed in is also tasty.

The premise of this thread is peculiar. There is a milk shake, and a malted milk shake. They are both milk shakes. The latter has a scoop of malt powder in it. As in "malted barley" which is, of course, also the basis of beer, scotch whiskey and malta.

FYI: If you order a chocolate shake (or malt) in the East, you get chocolate syrup and chocolate ice cream. In the Midwest, this is a "double chocolate" shake or malt. In the Midwest, a chocolate shake (or malt) is chocolate syrup with vanilla ice cream. In the East, that's called a "black and white."

MiamiDon: Thank you for finally pointing out the obvious: All malts are shakes, but not all shakes are malts. With or without malt, the cold sludge that comes out of machines at fast food places is NOT a shake (no matter what they call it).

We have malts today because some breweries stayed alive during prohibition by making and selling ice cream and they had a lot of barley malt to sell, too. Beer drinkers who switched to ice cream drinks liked the malt taste (which reminded them of what they really wanted to be drinking).

Make a Vanilla Milk Shake as you would normally and add one entire McDonalds apple pie cut into 8 pieces. Cut length wise and then 4 cuts. Mix it for a few seconds at the end so as not to pulverize the pieces. Cherry pie works also or a Hostess pie...Russ

When my son was around 5 I decided he needed to learn that real Milkshakes and Malts didn't come out of a machine. Were made with real Vanilla Ice Cream and not flavorless "Shake Base". Made with real Milk and that Malt flavor came in powder form not liquid.

So I started things off by buying a two headed Hamilton Beach shake mixer complete with the metal mixing cups.

We both prefer drinking them in the metal cups... you lose a little perfection trying to transfer it to another cup.

So now I can go meet my maker knowing I've taken the time to teach my son what the important things in life really are.

Plus I have no fear of death since I'm pretty sure God knows what a real Milk Shake is too.

Ethan21 We both prefer drinking them in the metal cups... you lose a little perfection trying to transfer it to another cup.

I've probably mentioned this before, but I have found that the metal cups are not only inexpensive, but make great containers for stick blenders; I always make my shakes using a stick blender in the metal cups (which, come to think of it, is pretty close to how it's made in an old fashioned soda shop).

My dad was a pharmacist and owned a drug store on the west side of Chicago(circa 1950). His pharmacy had a soda fountain, where as a kid, I made tons of ice cream creations on the weekends. My favorite was a chocolate malt accompanied by a packet of two Salerno butter cookies. We used Horlick's malt powder. I currently reside in Racine, WI, original home of Horlick's. http://www.wisconsinhisto...eum/exhibits/horlicks/

I made this almond malt with my trusty shake maker about an hour ago. It didn't take me long to down it:

I used to be able to find Horlick's easily and very cheap in Chinese grocery stores in Philadelphia's Chinatown. They seem to have stopped carrying it. I only see Ovaltine in those shops now, and I'm not an Ovaltine fan. It's become increasingly hard to find good malt in grocery stores around here too. So I bought NOW Foods malted milk powder from Amazon and have been very happy with it. For this malt, I also used about a half cup of whole milk, a little vanilla-flavored syrup, almond extract and a pint of hand-packed Bassett's French vanilla ice cream.

All this malt talk...my family wanted to make chocolate malts and burgers yesterday. Had to drive to three super markets before we found malt...a bottle of Carnation malt powder at a shop rite. Real malts are getting less well known by young people....sad...nothing is better than a well made malt!!!